UK Mattress Maker Preps £129 iPad 2 Rival

Want proof that the tablet market is very open? Well, "Leading UK bed and mattress specialist" Mattressman is going to launch a tablet called Andy Pad, in honour of Android. Surely, a Tesco-branded tablet is not too far.

The tablet, which is set to be launched at the beginning of September, will come with some pretty interesting features, including: a Cortex A8 system on chip clocked at 1.2GHz, Wi-Fi, 1080p HDMI connectivity and a 7-inch touchscreen, a front facing camera, a microUSB port and a microSD card reader.

Surprisingly, the tablet is said to come with Android 2.3 Gingerbread and will come with a number of pre-installed apps including Facebook, Twitter and Bubble Blast II.

The Andy Pad seems to have adopted the same colour scheme as the Amazon Kindle with a white, unglossy finish as well as a screen that looks grey rather than black when switched off.

The tablet will be sold directly and in the UK only, at least initially. There are no plans to get a rear facing camera, onboard 3G (and GPS) and it may or may not have a resistive touchscreen; another unknown is the amount of internal memory (RAM) and storage.

The pleasant surprise though is that the tablet will cost only £129 and you can already register your interest on its website. The Andy Pad will not only face the iPad 2 and the Galaxy Tab but will also be pitted against the Kogan Agora 7-inch tablet PC which costs £125.